Getting Around

Getting Around

Walking is wearing me out so I jumped on a bus yesterday near where I live and it took me to within a few steps of the place I was headed downtown in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento. The extensive routes are mapped out on almost every bus stop. I will be doing a lot less walking and taking more buses and subways—at least until I get a bicycle. I am thoroughly impressed with the amount of dedicated bike paths I have seen all over Valencia. I would imagine that they are gearing themselves up to move a lot more people around town on bikes in the future. That is my kind of future.

I have come across what will probably be one of my favorite cafes in the old section of Valencia. There are actually two small cafes that share an old courtyard just off the Calle del Mar, one is called Sol i Lluna (Sun and the Moon), and the other is called O’Clock. They both have a bit of indoor seating as well as the outdoor tables in the courtyard. Adjacent cafes keep track of which customers are theirs by having slightly different tables and chairs from their neighbors. These two cafes are on a quiet street sheltered by the three walls of a restored building that houses an art gallery. It’s not as if there is any shortage of great places to go for a beer or a cup of coffee but this spot really stands out for being so out-of-the-way. I have a feeling this will be the first place I take a date.

Walking home last night from downtown I took a slightly different route only one block east of the normal way. I was amazed to come across perhaps a dozen restaurants that looked interesting, including a Lebanese place. This slight deviation on the walk home made me realize how much I have to discover as there are still thousands of new ways to walk around the city. The only part of Valencia that I am familiar with at this point is the old city center, and I have a lot to discover there. The newer parts of the city—like the neighborhood I walked through last night—make up perhaps ten times the area of the old section. Every block seems to have its own restaurant and bar. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

With all of the public transportation, bicycles, and people walking, there are still a lot of automobiles. Traffic is heavy everywhere and from the looks of things around my apartment building, everyone seems to own a car, whether or not they actually drive it or not. These city dwellers seem to have the same attitude about cars as I did in Seattle: they only drive when they absolutely have to. Parking is pretty much a nightmare everywhere so people get pretty creative about where they leave their vehicles. Double parking is fairly epidemic and I haven’t figured out what people do when they get boxed in. Most cars around my neighborhood look as if they haven’t been driven in weeks so I suppose most folks just keep their little mini-compacts as some sort of abbreviated status symbols.

Cars are incredibly small here, especially when compared to the SUV-happy suburbs in America. My old VW Jetta would look like a luxury sedan over here as most cars are considerably smaller. The extreme end of the compact car world—at least for now—is the Smart Car. These two and now four seat micro-compacts are as long as most SUVs are wide and fit just about anywhere in the urban parking environment. You see a few SUVs here but I don’t know how people park them or negotiate the narrow inner-city streets. I guess you need the extra power and four wheel drive when you get wedged between two buildings in the old city.

The relationship between automobiles and pedestrians is like the Sunnis and Shiites, the Serbs and Croats, the Hatfields and McCoys. When you are crossing an intersection you cannot see the traffic light, only the green walk signal. When it starts to flash you have about four seconds to get the fuck across the street or risk being ripped apart by the angry line of automobiles waiting indignantly with their engines revving. It reminds me of the movie The Road Warrior but with better gas mileage. Fortunately all of the cars are scrawny little things so you can probably fend them off with a rolled up newspaper.

As a pedestrian you are obliged to share the sidewalk with the little dogs favored by almost all Europeans. They are the canine version of the snarling subcompact cars screeching to and from every stop light. Dogs seemed to be allowed everywhere except the beach. The Spanish haven’t yet decided to make owners clean up after their pets so along with oncoming cars; you must also keep a constant vigil against the hazards of dog poop.

You can get almost anywhere in the city on a bike without having to ride in the street. The bike paths, or Carril Bici, are mostly on the sidewalks along the curb. Among the advantages to these dedicated bike paths is the fact that you can ride at night with little fear of getting hit by a car. The paths are painted along the sidewalks to give pedestrians a warning that bikes may be coming from either direction. Biking is fairly popular here but it hasn’t caught on to the degree it has in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, or Zurich. If you are the least bit fit this seems to be the best personal transportation option. Bicycles are also fairly cheap and people here tend to opt for better models than the crappy Chinese bikes favored in Amsterdam. I hope to have my own crappy bike within just a few days.

When I’m traveling around unfamiliar cities it seems like most of my time is spent finding nice places to hang out and then hanging out there. I suppose that life, in general, is pretty much the same thing.